This invention relates to a motor vehicle signalling system and more particularly to a signalling and control system for improving vehicle safety and reducing driver stress.
Excessive glare from oncoming vehicles and vehicles travelling behind vehicles is annoying, affects vehicle safety, and causes driver stress. Headlight glare or the failure to turn on headlights can cause serious accidents, especially at high highway driving speeds, in dark winding residential neighborhoods, and conditions of low visibility, such as fog, dust storms, rain and snow. There are no engineered vehicle systems available for signalling drivers to dim or turn on their vehicles' headlights. Drivers attempt to signal others to dim or turn on headlights by flashing their vehicles' headlights "on" and "off" or their high beam headlights "on" and off", too often with little or no success.
The problem of excessive glare is increasing rather than decreasing for the following reasons. Pick-up truck and sport vehicle sales are steadily increasing. Headlights of pick-up trucks and sport vehicles produce more glare than passenger vehicles because of their higher positions and are especially annoying on hills due to angular changes in headlight beams. Furthermore, advances in vehicle lighting, such as halogen lights and improved headlight optics have increased headlight illumination and consequently headlight glare.
Headlight glare from vehicles travelling behind vehicles is generally more annoying and fatiguing than glare from oncoming vehicles. This is so because headlight glare from rearward vehicles generally persists for much longer periods of time than glare from oncoming vehicles. However, it should be kept in mind that headlight glare from a rearward vehicle is also annoying and more threatening to oncoming vehicles.
Vehicle manufacturers have recognized that headlight glare from vehicles travelling behind vehicles is a problem by equipping vehicles with "day and night" rear view mirrors. Although "day and night" mirrors reduce glare, they also act to reduce night vision. Moreover, they are ineffectual for reducing glare from oncoming vehicles and glare from reflections off of side view mirrors. Furthermore, many truckers are unable to reduce glare from side view mirrors because many truck side view mirrors cannot be adjusted during driving because they require special wrenches for adjustment. Manufacturers have attempted to provide a solution for glare from oncoming vehicles by offering automatic headlight dimmers. However, automatic headlight dimmers have been unsuccessful and taken off the market.
The current practice of signalling an oncoming vehicle by switching a vehicle's headlights or "high beams" "on" and "off" has several undesirable consequences. One undesirable consequence is that the wide illumination field of a vehicle's headlights is annoying and dangerous to drivers of other oncoming vehicles and vehicles travelling ahead of the signalling vehicle. Another undesirable consequence is that this practice does not always gain the attention of the driver of the offending vehicle. Another undesirable consequence is that no uniform procedure exists for flashing a vehicle's headlights "on and off". Another undesirable consequence is that there is no control over the length of time for signalling the offending driver.
With the foregoing in mind, it is apparent that a need exists for a standardized, effective system for signalling a driver to dim or turn on his vehicle's headlights.